The Abbess Of Vlaye

by Stanley John Weyman

"It is necessary."

"Why?" A younger and stronger voice flung the question at des Ageaux. The Abbess stood forward beside her father. "Why?" she repeated imperiously. "Why should we go from here--from our own house? Or why should we fear M. de Vlaye?"

"To the latter question--because he does not lightly forgive, mademoiselle," des Ageaux replied drily. "To the former because I have neither men nor means to defend this house. To both, because you have with you"--he pointed to the Countess--"this lady, whom it is not consonant with the Vicomte's honour either to abandon or to surrender. To be plain, M. de Vlaye's plans have been thwarted and his men routed, and to-morrow's sun will not be an hour high before he takes the road. To remain here were to abide the utmost of his power; which," he added drily, "is at present of importance, however it may stand in a week's time."

She looked at him darkly beautiful, temper and high disdain in her face. And as she looked there began to take shape in her mind the wish to destroy him; a wish that even as she looked, in a space of time too short to be measured by our clumsy methods, became a fixed thought. Why had he intervened? Who had invited him to intervene? With a woman's inconsistency she left out of sight the wrong M. de Vlaye would have done her, she forgot the child-Countess, she overlooked all except that this man was the enemy of the man she loved. She felt that but for him all would have been well! But for him--for even that she laid at his door--and his hostility the Captain of Vlaye had never been driven to think of that other way of securing his fortunes.

These thoughts passed through her mind in a pause so short that the listeners scarcely marked it for a pause. Then, "And if we will not go?" she cried.

"All in the house will go," he replied.

"Whither?"

"I shall decide that," he answered coldly. And he turned from her. Before she could retort he was giving orders, and men were coming and going and calling to one another, and lights were flitting in all directions through the house, and all about her was hubbub and stir and confusion. She saw that resistance was vain. Her father was passive, her brothers were des Ageaux's most eager ministrants. The servants were awed into silence, or, like old Solomon, who for once was mute on the glories of the race, were anxious to escape for their own sakes.

Then into her hatred of him entered a little of that leaven of fear which makes hatred active. For amid the confusion he was cool. His voice was firm, his eye commanded on this side, his hand beckoned on that, men ran for him. She knew the dread in which M. de Vlaye was held. But this she saw was not the awe in which men hold him whose caprice it may be to punish, but the awe in which men stand of him who is just; whose nature it is out of chaos to create order, and who to that end will spend himself and all. A man cold of face and something passionless; even hard, we have seen, when a rope, a bough, and a villain forced themselves on his attention.

She would not have known him had she seen him leaning over Joyeuse a few minutes later, while his lean subaltern held a shaded taper on the other side of the makeshift pallet. The door was locked on them, they had the room to themselves, and between them the Duke lay in the dead sleep of exhaustion. "I do not think that we can move him," des Ageaux muttered, his brow clouded by care.